Love Among the Treetops: A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

‘Right. But isn’t that cheating?’

Lorena bursts into peals of laughter at my witty jest (I actually wasn’t joking) and waves her hands in the air to dry her nails.

I clear my throat. ‘I just want to join the gym and use an – er – ordinary treadmill if possible. Do you have ordinary treadmills here?’

Another peal of laughter. ‘About a hundred and twenty.’ She looks at me kindly, as if I’m several dumb-bells short of a complete workout.

‘Oh. Great.’ I put my thumb up awkwardly. ‘Well, I just need the one.’ Honestly, I am so out of my depth here. I feel like this girl’s grandma even though we’re probably about the same age.

I must get myself some new workout gear. My outfit today is circa turn of the century, from the one and only other time I joined a gym (although I wisely left the matching sweatband at home in the bag). I’m going to stand out like the complete novice that I am.

I’m also terrified Theo Steel is going to walk in at any moment and think I’m stalking him …

‘I’ll book you in for a seduction,’ Lorena says.

Confused, I whip round to the door. Is Theo here?

Lorena runs a perfect nail down a column and looks up. ‘Induction at ten-fifteen with Gerry?’

Ah! I breathe more easily. An induction.

I actually just want to go home and forget this whole idea. But Lorena is already writing my name in the diary and handing me a membership form.

I go home and fill the time until ten-fifteen making a Bakewell tart cake, which smells heavenly baking in the oven. Not having had time for breakfast earlier, I end up ‘testing’ two large slices of the jammy, almond-cake lusciousness and deciding it should definitely feature on the café menu. I make a note to bake two more for the ‘tasting party’ I’m planning.

Just before my appointment with ‘Gerry’ at ten-fifteen, I brave the gym again, register at the desk with a girl called Charlene, and scuttle through to get changed into my sad gym gear.

Gerry turns out to be a guy of about twenty with a broad Yorkshire accent and a lovely self-deprecating sense of humour, which puts me immediately at my ease. He takes me on a tour of the machines and how they work, and I spend my time nodding and looking knowledgeable, pretending I’ve memorised his instructions perfectly. There’s not a sign of Theo Steel and I start to relax a bit and feel less awkward. Maybe it’s his day off.

Gerry starts me off on a treadmill, very slowly at first then increasing the speed, and actually, I’m doing fine. I was worried I’d collapse, breathless, after ten seconds, but my legendary stamina appears to be serving me well. Gerry leaves me on my own to attend to another novice and that’s when I get a bit too confident, pumping up the speed and almost falling off the back of the machine because my legs can’t go fast enough.

Feeling silly but relieved to still be in one piece, I glance around nervously. I’ve got a muscle-bound Trojan pounding a machine on each side of me, sweat raining down like two mini cloud-bursts, but they’re both so doggedly focused on getting in their mileage, they haven’t even registered my mishap.

I climb back on and do another mile, then decide that’s probably enough for my first day. Feeling rather proud of myself, I grab my towel to wipe my brow and exchange a smile with another novice. I’m not the only new girl – and soon, if I stick with it, I won’t actually be the new girl at all. I’ll show Lucy Slater that I’m more than capable of running for ten kilometres without stopping!

Feeling much better, I loop the towel round my neck, the way I’ve seen other people do, and swig down a cup of water at the drinks machine.

What on earth was I worried about? This is a breeze.

And Theo Steel was nowhere in sight!

Entering the changing room, all I’m thinking about is trying out one of those lovely power showers I spotted earlier, then going home to start painting the café walls with the pretty pale lilac paint I’ve chosen.

As I push confidently through the door, I’m rooting around in my bag for the locker key. So I’ve walked a fair way into the room before I finally look up and notice all is not as it should be.

Realisation engulfs me slowly, like treacle poured onto me from a height.

This – is – not – the – ladies’ – changing – room.

All the men turn in my direction, innocently displaying their nakedness.

I gulp. Suffering bed snakes!

I’m staring at them and they’re staring right back, frozen in time. We’re like some weird tableau in an edgy, fringe theatre production. One man has the presence of mind to whip a bag of crisps in front of his privates. (Sadly for him, his packet of Wotsits does a pretty good job of concealment.) At least three of the men are completely stark bollock naked.

But it’s the one with his foot up on the bench, pausing in the act of drying his thigh with one of the gym’s white towels, who turns my face the deepest shade of crimson.

Theo Steel.

Chapter 8 (#ulink_de31ef01-5cf5-5872-969c-c4769c3fe97b)

Plastering on a smile, I raise my hand in a general greeting.

‘Hi. Sorry. Got the wrong door. Sorry.’

They all just stare at me. Except Theo Steel, who’s grinning down at the floor.

I start backing apologetically out of the door, like I’m exiting a room with the Queen in it. ‘Nice to see you. Enjoy your day.’

Fleeing into the corridor, I blunder in completely the wrong direction, then have to double back to find the women’s changing-room door. Just as I’m charging past the scene of my nightmare, Theo emerges with a towel round his waist.

‘Whoa! Steady on.’ He grasps my arms as we collide and it flashes across my mind that if his towel should slip, my humiliation would be complete. ‘Do you know where you’re going now?’

I nod, pointing mutely along the corridor, my power of speech compromised by the experience of glimpsing more naked men in the last thirty seconds than I’ve seen in my entire life.

‘I’ve just finished with a client,’ he says. ‘Do you fancy meeting in five for a drink in the bar?’

I smile regretfully. ‘Bit too early for me.’

‘I meant a soft drink.’

‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

‘They do fresh juices. Very healthy.’

I swallow hard. With my hair plastered to my forehead and my décolletage an attractive shade of blotchy red, due to my recent exertions on the treadmill, I don’t think I’ve ever felt less like being sociable.

‘I’m sure they’d make you a juice with celery if you asked nicely.’ There’s a glint in Theo’s eye and I can’t help smiling back at his reference to Olivia and her little Tupperware box of celery sticks on the train.

I nod. ‘Okay.’

We part and I dash off, wondering if five minutes is enough time to shower, wash my hair and dry it, and reapply my make-up.

When I walk into the bar seventeen minutes later (a personal record), my hair is swishing softly round my shoulders, smelling all herby from the shampoo in the shower cubicle. The blotches on my chest have gone, and I’m glowing with a lovely sense of achievement at having run a couple of miles this morning.

Theo is sitting at a corner table, reading a newspaper, dressed in jeans and a pale green T-shirt. He throws the newspaper onto the table when he spots me. ‘I assume you’d rather skip the celery juice?’ He smiles, his deep blue eyes raking over me, making me glad I washed my hair.

I swallow. ‘You assumed right. Actually, fresh orange would be nice.’ I glance at the selection of fruit piled up on the bar near the industrial-sized juicing machine.